She’s Gonna Need a Big Phone Book

Well my oldest daughter told me the other day ‘that lady president called Daddy last night’.Â Speaking child-speak fluently, I decoded instantly that Hillary’s campaign office had phoned again asking for support.Â Pretty swift decoding, eh?Â Testing my theory I answered ‘what did she want from Daddy, advice on running the government?’Â Because my husband could certainly giveÂ his best shot at providing organizational advice.Â He runs our three child operation very well.

Â My daughter correctly replied ‘No- she just wanted Daddy to vote for her.’ (Whew!Â I was correct in my original decoding.)Â Then my daughter noted in closing ‘She’s going to need a BIGGG phone book.’Â I bring this up to coincide with Jason’s earlier blog about the presidency and patriotism.Â My children are dimly aware that something is happening on the national political front but not very clear about the details- ‘that lady president called’.Â But they were correct in stating ‘she wants Daddy to vote for her’.

Â I am not sure how much to involve my children in the process at this point.Â My husband and I have lively debates regarding national issues, but not usually at the dinner table with the kids.Â I don’t know how much they would understand (or care) about the individual issues, but I would like them to understand that there are strong feelings on both sides of most things that are important.Â And I would like the kids to see that rational adults can agree to disagree without going overboard.Â Is teaching politicsÂ and civics in the home something other parents with young kids have dealt with?

One Response

Like sex and religion, unless there is a decent degree of consent-and the children are under the age when they know that a ‘disagreement’ can occur amicably-not in front of the kids. We tend to get more strident in tone and little ones do not have the experience to interpret a spirited discussion from an angry one. Besides, kids get bored easily and why spoil their meal/playtime/bath, etc.